so i guess i should update on what actually happened this summer...

hmm, therapy... I wonder how many of us actually need it...

anyway, this summer sucked... royally...

as soon as abbie and i got home, we got in the car and drove to nd. when we got there, we saw our grandpa-- the one guy i have really i dont know... kind of used as an example of what i'd look for in a guy of my own, the one guy i looked up to (ok so maybe guy isnt the right term, but honestly, i really did look up to him)-- in a bed at the nursing home. i've never seen him like that before. even when he was sick those other times, i could tell this time, it was for real...
he was so frail and his skin looked jaundicy. he had lost so much weight, and on top of all that, he was mean... very mean. he'd always been the one who took care of things. growing up, he sacrificed his own education so that his brother and sisters could go to school. then when he married my grandmother, he took care of her too, and their daughter, and all of us grandkids. perhaps the only one he felt like he could never take care of was my mom. not because he didnt want to, but because of the circumstances. i loved his hands. he was a gardener, and his hands were thick with age and years of digging in the dirt. man i'm going to miss him.
anyway, seeing him so emaciated kind of tore down the image i had had of him in my head. then i was thrown into the world of my relatives where my aunt basically acted as though my family was in no way affected by this. and granted, i didnt know alot about my grandpa because i hadnt spent nearly as much time with him as my cousins had, but that doesn't mean that what i did know about him wasn't true, and it definitely doesn't mean that the time i did spend with my grandpa was worth nothing. now im more angry about the way i was treated than i was before. before i was angry because it seemed to me that everyone was acting as if he were already dead, as if he didn't matter anymore. my aunt started telling my grandma to not visit him as much as she did, not to go tuck him in at night. it angered me because if i were in his place and i didn't know if i could make it through the night, i would rather say good night to someone i loved and have their face be the last that i see rather than an orderly or a nurse. yes, it bothered me that my relatives seemed to have no respect for me, but it bothered me more that they seemed to have no respect for anyone, even my grandpa.
at his memorial (i guess you would call it) my aunt took control then when people came, it was like everyone was at a barbecue. i dont mean to sound conceited, but honestly, the only people that seemed in the least bit reverent, were my parents and abbie and i. they placed the urn at the front of the room, and something that was supposed to be in memory of the one we knew and loved, turned into a jovial party that he wasn't even welcome at. nobody went and paid their respects to the urn, no one said a prayer for him. it sickened me that a town who claimed to love my grandfather had forgotten him not even two days after he had died.

anyway, i'll write more later... im getting tired